I find the Consulting and Selling side of my job the most interesting, becoming a trusted consultant for highly critical Technical Solutions. So this is just a place holder for my research into selling. Its all about telling the truth and listening.. Of course backing that up with deep technical knowledge and applying that to a technical solution to achieve business objectives.

Making the sale (EXAMPLE)

Vivek Gupta thrives on identifying discomfort. “You have to understand their pain points,” he says of his customers. “And they’re not going to spell them out.” Several years ago he had a fruitless first meeting with a sales prospect at a wireless telecom. Though the prospect said he was perfectly happy with his current partners, Gupta asked if he could study the business anyway, no strings attached. First, he dropped by the company’s switching center in Mumbai and chatted with the engineers on the floor. One mentioned that the microwave radios the company used to transmit call signals from one tower to the next weren’t as reliable as he’d like. In his next conversation, Gupta mentioned he’d heard microwave radios were a problem. Figuring Gupta was in the know, this second engineer confided that the problem was serious: Six or seven times each week the network was effectively crashing. Gupta had found his pain point.

At the same time, he began compiling a dossier on his prospect: The man had two grown children, his wife taught public school, and they lived in Delhi. One evening when they were scheduled to go to the same industry event, Gupta offered to pick the guy up at home, knowing that, as is the custom, he would be invited in for tea. That night Gupta kept things light. But two months after the initial sales snub, he made a second call to the man, now a friendly acquaintance, explaining the problem with the microwave radios and offering a relatively inexpensive fix. A small contract for microwave radios led, within a year, to other deals worth $100 million.

WHITEBOARD SELLING

Firstly, if you want to influence anyone, the best method is good old conversation and relationship building. (Without any white rabbits. ) Only use powerpoints or diagrams or whiteboards as a big reveal. )Think Steve Jobs)

Draw the Customer Infrastructure

Ask how Each Component is setup in the customer site. HQ/ DR Site, Branch Office and then write down on the side what services or solutions you can provide

If you are trying to sell them Backup or DR, as them how they existing architecture and draw it up.. This takes allot of practice, get the customer to participate